


You give love a bad name

by Sharpiefan



Category: Show the Colours (Roleplaying Game), The London Life (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: F/M, Original Character(s), Regency
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-09-25 05:08:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9803927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sharpiefan/pseuds/Sharpiefan
Summary: Before Robert can marry Elise, he really ought to break up with his mistress. This is their last night together.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is the original unedited version of this fic.

If the truth were known, Robert felt somewhat of a cad right now. He had spent a most pleasant evening at the Rotherham ball yesterday, during the course of which he had danced twice with Elise Hampton, the woman to whom he was engaged as of about half-past eleven that morning. All perfectly respectable and above board so far, of course.

But right now he was lying, naked, on a bed in a room of the house he had taken near Bloomsbury Square for another woman. Moreover, he was lying, naked as the day he was born, in that woman's arms, with her playing with his hair.

That he had taken her as his mistress some two or three years ago was neither here nor there. That there was even the remotest possibility he might actually propose to someone this Season had never crossed his mind – well, not seriously, anyway. And then Elise had wormed her way into his life as more than merely Emma's friend. Gentle, kind, sweet, unassuming Elise, so slow to see her own worth, so ready to see the best in everyone around her. It had been a surprise to himself, as much as it must have been to her, when he had proposed to her – in Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, of all places!

Plenty of men took mistresses before they were married, of course – plenty of men had mistresses even after they were married, but Robert had no intention of making any sort of vows to Elise in the sight of God and their families, to remain faithful to her while also knowing he had a mistress elsewhere. It would break Elise's heart if she ever found out, and he could not, would not, do that to her. Sweet innocent Elise... No.

Valeria had taken the news philosophically, as Robert had hoped she would. He supposed that any girl fool enough to become the mistress of an unmarried man must expect this to happen eventually.

“Is she nice, though?” Valeria lifted herself onto one elbow and looked at him quizzically, her Cockney accent a startling contrast to Elise's clear, gentle, well-modulated voice, as her dark hair was a contrast to Elise's white-blond corona.

He gave a huff of laughter. “I'm not sure whether I ought to answer that, you know.”

“Worried I might get jealous 'cause some nice lady's caught your eye? Bound to 'appen, though, sooner nor later, weren't it, though? But is she nice?” Her hand trailed down from his head to his chest, and he tucked his arm behind his head so he could look at her.

“Well, _I_ think she is, very. Not at all... hoity-toity, as your friends doubtless call it.”

Valeria's expression grew somewhat wistful, even as her hand drifted lower, towards his stomach. “Bin nice, 'avin' a lord, y'know. Though I ain't the only girl can say that, o' course.”

“I'm not a lord, though my father is – I've told you that, I'm sure I have.”

“That's as may be, you ain't so far off bein' one as that lot out there.” She jabbed a thumb in the direction of the window before returning to stroking his skin. “You got the money and the nice 'ouse an' all, ain't you?”

Robert shrugged. He supposed it was all one and the same for the folks she lived and associated with. Certainly he was as likely to be greeted 'milord' as 'guv' around here.

Valeria wriggled down the bed a little and rested her chin lightly on his stomach where her hand had been, though still keeping eye-contact with him. “Nice of you to come an' tell me goodbye yerself, though. Most gents wouldn't've, would've just sent a footman.”

Robert reached down to twist a strand of her dark hair around his finger. “I bet you would have given him something to remember, if I had sent a footman.”

She shrugged a bare shoulder. “Mebbe. Mebbe not. I'll give _you_ summat to remember, though. Bet your nice lady won't do this...” She gave him a sly look before her mouth descended to a part of his anatomy on which no gently-born lady would dream of putting a hand, let alone her mouth.

"Oh, my God!" It was pure reflex that made Robert grab at the sheets, rather than Valeria's hair. “I should say not!” he managed after a moment. It was about the last coherent thing he could say, or think, for at least fifteen minutes after she eventually curled up next to him, resting her head on his bare chest.

He fumbled for the bedclothes one-handed, pulling them over her, and fell asleep.


End file.
